Complications for climate-change alarmists

[caption id="attachment_63856" align="alignright" width="300" caption="In this combination of two photos showing the Minsk Arena sport complex before and after the lights are turned off (right) during the preparation for worldwide Earth Hour, a global campaign to highlight the threat of climate change, in Minsk, Belarus, late Tuesday, March 27, 2012. Earth Hour will take place on March 31. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)"][/caption]

NEWPORT BEACH, Eric Fulsang: In many recent letters to the editor about global warming I have noticed a plethora of statistics, data and percentages quoted. The figures are then debated by both sides in great detail with great emotion. People must step back and reason it out. Ask yourself these questions:

People can't predict weather a few days or weeks into the future with accuracy. How can we expect climate models to be accurate in 10 or 20 or 100 years?

If we could predict the future climate, and we agreed we did not like it, then what climate would we agree on?

If we agree on a perfect climate, how do we control it?

If we could control the climate, would we stop all future global weather variations including global cooling? So, if an ice age is forecasted, do we increase greenhouse gas production to prevent it?

When Europe started selling carbon credits, it should have been clear that it is a money-making scheme. If we were on a sinking ship, would we sell sinking-ship credits so some individuals could continue to drill holes in the boat? No. We would throw those people overboard and fix the holes in the boat.

If the world is in a bad situation (coming to an end), we would take drastic steps to stop it. The United States would modernize factories in foreign countries for free in order to prevent the end of the world, and we would be deep into that process by now. We would invade countries that are deforesting. None of these things have been discussed or implemented. In the past people have changed how we plow fields to prevent dust storms, and we have reduced lead emissions. These are real environmental problems that continue to be addressed. As much as we are able we should always be concerned about poisoning the environment we live in and take steps to fix problems that have been created.

When it comes to the global climate, humans will need to ride it out as it changes. We always have in the past. We need to accept that we cannot change Earth's position, its tilt or the output of the sun. “It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

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BREA, Don Winterstein: There are two kinds of global-warming skepticism: informed skepticism and uninformed skepticism. Much of the public is guilty of uninformed skepticism.

Informed skeptics will recognize the following well-established facts:

Earth has very likely warmed over the past 150 years by almost 1 degree Celsius.

Humans have generated lots of CO2 over the past century.

Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas humans have had a role in any temperature increase.

The issue is not whether it happens or continues to happen; the issue is whether it's important. Does the observed temperature increase result from human-generated CO2 or mostly from another cause? And if humans continue to put lots of CO2 into the atmosphere, will that have significant consequences?

The alarm of climate-change alarmists stems almost entirely from predictions of computer climate models. (Some from questionable hockey-stick graphs.) But predicting the future from Earth science models is notoriously difficult and error-prone. Earth is complicated, and models necessarily oversimplify. If the models were good, their predictions would be correct. If the predictions are not correct, which has been the case, the models are not trustworthy.

There are good reasons for being skeptical, especially when you are informed.

Competition isn't practical for utilities

ORANGE, Paul Pongetti: Stephen Greenhut's March 23 column, “Water socialists are all wet,” is an unfair analysis of government-run utility systems. Most Americans are not socialists and would agree that private markets are the best option when competition exists. Unfortunately, competition is not practical for utilities, and Greenhut argues for the crony-capitalist solution of a private water company.

Greenhut fails to acknowledge profits made by Golden State Water and where these profits go. Golden State Water customers pay for the water and delivery expenses and for executive salaries, debt payments and profits of Golden State's parent company, American States Water Co., which is a corporation whose objective is to charge consumers the highest rates possible, pay as little as possible for salaries and equipment and return as much as possible to shareholders. Consider the first sentence of its mission statement:

“American States Water Co. is committed to maximizing shareholder value through a combination of capital appreciation and cash dividends.”

There is nothing wrong with the profit motive in a free market where competition exists, but it is not compatible with a utility. I'm sure Stanton residents would prefer to maximize customer value and build a stronger community.

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